


Stories and Secrets

by AndInThoseMoments



Series: Trust and Teamwork [9]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Characters Writing Fanfiction, Diary/Journal, Fanboy Phil Coulson, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-12
Updated: 2014-05-12
Packaged: 2018-01-24 13:04:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1606211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndInThoseMoments/pseuds/AndInThoseMoments
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coulson has a notebook Clint brought back from a mission, in which he writes stories of how amazing Agent Barton is.  Clint, curious about it's contents, breaks in with Natasha to read it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stories and Secrets

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "Purple prose" and betaed by Shadowhaloedangel

Coulson had always had what some might have described as an active imagination. Other less kind people might have described it as overactive, or else accused him of being a romantic or a fool. It wasn't that he was out of touch with reality - you could never have lived the life he had in either the army or SHIELD without a healthy dose of realism, but rather that he thought that reality could be better.

 

As a child that imagination had expressed itself in his naive adoration of Steve Rogers, and everything that Captain America stood for. He had idolised this symbol of human perfection, and had never considered anything beyond the tales he was told. His younger years had been full of stories he had made up, of Captain Rogers saving people. He would be a sidekick in some of these dreams, a rescued bystander in others, and an assistant in yet more. He scrawled stories in his notebooks and filled his journals with childlike dantasies of Captain America’s success. He was sure that in time, he could be in a hero just like that man.

 

As he had got older, faced more and more difficult decisions, and found himself again and again looking at the evils of humanity, he began to doubt that Steve Rogers the person had ever existed. Captain America had been a useful tool for the American Propaganda machine, and probably bore less relation to the man in the suit than Tony Stark did to his own media persona. He still had dreams, but he didn't write them anymore. They were private, something shameful. He lost his faith in heroes, at least ones like Captain America. Men like Steve Rogers didn't exist.

 

He still allowed Steve's actions to guide him though. He'd ask himself, when he was faced with impossible choices and brutal decisions, what it was that his hero would have wanted him to do. Even when he doubted the existence of the man, the image in his head gave him guidance.

 

It had been knowledge of Steve's mythical past in an orphanage, coupled with the fact that he had apparently been known for giving people chances, that had encouraged him to go with his gut instinct when he had first been assigned the Barton case. What could have been a simple case of taking out the archer, just a shot to the head at a distance, became something more.

 

He'd looked at this man, on the run from prison and from the circus, a gun for hire who had still chosen his victims a little - only targeting those that had done bad things, not those with the highest bounty on their head - and he had thought about what Captain America would have wanted him to do.

 

Captain America would have believed this man deserved a chance, same as any of them. Once he'd realised that, all that mattered was finding a way of giving him that chance.

 

The archer, when he had first seen him, had been thin, tired, hungry and desperate. He'd been slow the last few days, leaving signs of where he was - like a wounded animal, trying to encourage the killing blow because he just couldn't fight any more. When Coulson had stepped out, he hadn't raised his weapon, simply turned and ran.

 

Coulson had raised his gun, fired a single shot, and sent the man crashing to the pavement, blood running from his thigh. Then he had made his way over to him, bandaged the wound, and given him another chance. It might not have been the easy thing to do, but it had been the right one. It was what Steve Rogers, the Steve Rogers he believed in as a child, would have done.

 

He hadn't regretted it. Because whilst Steve Rogers was probably little more than government propaganda, Clint Barton was real. Not pure, but good, and hardworking, and loyal, guided by an innate sense of right and wrong as strong as the one Phil had tried to give himself. Clint had come to dominate his life, becoming his partner at work and out of it, and while Phil would never voice it aloud, he felt that he had been lucky enough to find a new hero to follow.

 

He supposed that had been part of why their relationship had started - just making up stories in his head, fantasies after long hard days at the office. He had never planned to act on his daydreams - he felt that pursuing a relationship with Barton would have been beyond unprofessional.

 

Luckily for him, Barton had disagreed, and had made that clear years into their working relationship. Some of Phil's dreams had turned into reality, but he still continued telling himself stories about the archer.

 

After one long mission, before their relationship had begun, Clint had returned with a beautiful notebook, wrapped in silk and with gilt edges. He had handed it over with a mutter of thanks for putting up with him, and Coulson had treasured it. It wasn't much like the other gifts Clint had brought home, which were usually simply cheap tat, but the silk was red white and blue, and it was something that he could very easily make precious.

 

For several months, he had done nothing with the notebook, but as his and Clint's friendship had begun to blossom into something more, he had returned to those pages, opening it and writing down short snatches of ideas.

 

_"The archer stood on the rooftop, wind ruffling his hair. He took a steadying breath, inhaling the scent of the freshly cut grass, then drew up his bow. He pulled his hand back to his chin after notching an arrow, eyes scanning the ground below for his target. Finally catching sight of it, his fingers released, and the arrow flew true."_

_"The archer jumped from the side of the building, the air whistling past him. His hands shot out, scrabbling for purchase on the rough surface, and caught onto a window ledge. His body jolted, and he cried out, but pulled himself up, crashing into the room and panting to regain his breath. His chest heaved as he stroked the hair from his eyes, trying to calm himself once more. His heart raced, but he had a job to do. People were relying on him, and he couldn't let them down."_

 

It was embarrassing, but when he was having a difficult day, or Clint had managed to get himself into trouble, it was strangely comforting to be able to open the book and read over his own accounts of what his lover had managed to do.

 

_"The archer walking through the woodland kept his wits about him, senses alert for any sign of trouble. He froze as he noticed a single white piece of paper, positioned almost beneath his foot. He unfolded it to find a warning. He backed away, heart racing, and clambered up a tree, still searching for his prey. He did not have long to wait._

 

_She walked through the clearing, her long red hair swaying as she walked. Her head was held high, and she was holding out a gun, presenting herself as a target. She didn't shoot the archer, hesitating for a moment, and he shot her._

 

_She fell to the ground, blood staining the whiteness as it spread, but she wasn't fatally hurt. Her arm had been hit, the weapon knocked from her hand, but she was alive. The archer secured her and waited for backup, carefully removing knives and guns from her person, awed by her."_

 

He hadn't intended to start writing anyone else into their stories - they had always been just about Clint, in the same way that the stories he had written about Captain America as a child had focused just on the hero, with even Phil himself fading into the background. But things like that never lasted, and with Natasha becoming a fundamental part of his team, he started to include her more and more. He still kept his own presence out of the way, not wanting to interrupt the flow of the stories.

_"The two agents sat on the couch, the archer captivated by his video game on his cell phone, whilst the assassin lay back, her head against his lap, reading some poetry to herself in her native tongue. They looked at peace for once, and there was no sign from either of them of the long and challenging mission they had just completed."_

_"The handsome archer slowly blinked awake, his blood still thick with the cocktail of drugs provided to keep him from dying. His eyes scanned the room, settling on the figures of his handler and his partner, and he calmed a little. His handler's fingers stroked through his hair, and he felt the tension leave him, and he let the soft words, accented with the slightest hint of Russian, wash over him."_

 

He sat at his desk, reading over his stories, and making a few adjustments. He'd referred to Clint's eyes as piercing two times in quick succession, so he changed the latter to vivid, and then he tried to capture the scenery of the latest mission, penning a few lines about the damp air and luscious greenery, the _"ferns of brilliant green that curled in the sunlight, sparkling damp with dew"._

 

Finally, he was satisfied with the most recent addition to his book, and he put it back into his drawer. He made sure to lock it away, then headed in to meet the Director for lunch.

 

As his key clicked in the lock, there were two soft thumps in the room, as Romanoff and Barton dropped from the vents. Clint went to watch the door, whilst Natasha began to pick the lock of the desk drawer, opening it.

 

"Well?" Clint hissed. "Is it there?"

"You said the notebook had golden edges, and blue and red binding?" She asked softly, her voice barely a whisper. "It's there. He's kept it. That was what he was looking at when we arrived."

"Did he use it?"

She opened it, flicking through the pages and catching sight of writing across most of them.

"He used it. I told you he would like any present you gave him..." She answered, her voice trailing off slightly as she noticed her name on the sheet. "Come here golub, you need to see this..."

 

"Isn't... isn't this like reading his diary?" Clint protested half heartedly.

"We are spies." Natasha pointed out, her voice perfectly level but still soft. "And I doubt you would have suggested coming here if you didn't want to read it. Anyway, it mentions you."

 

At that, Clint abandoned any pretense of not being interested, heading over to look at what had been written on the pages. He leaned in beside Natasha.

"Wow, his writing's a mess."

"Like you can talk Golub." She shot back, and the two of them stood in silence, reading over Coulson's work.

                                                                                      

_"The two agents sat together on a bench, watching the ducks scrabble around for the last few crusts of bread. Their handler thought for a moment of a book he had read, of ducks having almost Pavlovian responses to spies in trench coats and Russian hats. Perhaps there was more truth to that than he wanted to admit."_

 

Clint snorted, letting Natasha turn the page, her eyes skimming ahead and finding the next section worthy of their attention, where the firelight _"flickered off the assassin's skin, setting her aglow, whilst it was reflected coldly in the eyes of the archer, as the flakes whirled in the air outside."_

 

Clint couldn't wipe the grin off his face, and even Natasha was smiling a little, when she heard footsteps in the corridor outside.

"He's here." She whispered, moving to close the notebook and return it to its place. Clint blocked her.

"I want to ask him about it." He told her.

 

"If you wish Golub." She answered. "But if he does not take it well and you end up sleeping on the couch tonight, you have no one to blame but yourself."

 

The door was unlocked, and Coulson stepped inside, a look of total lack of surprise on his face at the sight of the two of them. His face fell a little a moment later, when he noticed what it was that they were standing by – his agents either side of his precious, stupid notebook.

 

He felt his face reddening in a way that it hadn't for several years, and it took all his strength to walk over, place his hand on it and close it. Anger and apologies fought on his tongue, and he looked up at them with his face expressionless.

"I think I'd better put that away now." He told them. "I don't think it's of much use for your reports, is it? As long as you've both finished having your fun?"

 

"It... it was good." Clint muttered, shame catching up with him. Natasha still looked calm, as though she had no regrets, but Coulson had expected that. After all, she was a spy, and this mentioned her. She would feel it was within her rights to see it. If she was angry, or hurt, it would be justified. He should have expected the two of them to find it sooner or later, but he still was humiliated by their attention.

 

"You don't have to say anything. We can put this behind us and forget about it." He offered, finding it hard to give it away, to leave himself exposed, but willing to make that sacrifice in order to restore harmony to the team. But Clint stepped forwards and wrapped his arms around him.

"You didn't let me finish talking. It was good... but you... you wrote yourself out of it. You were there a lot, and you don't even really give yourself a mention...with Tasha... You helped me. You rescued me a lot of the times in here that you've just got me fighting my way out and... and you shouldn't just forget yourself. You're important as well."

 

Natasha nodded, her own hand resting on Coulson's arm for a moment.

"You do yourself a disservice." She said simply. "You are a far greater man than this shows."  
Her fingers ran down to his wrist, and he squeezed it softly, leaning in closer to him. “We just hadn’t realised that your… ‘fanboy tendencies’ extended beyond the Captain America posters on your wall.”

 

“With the two of you, what choice did I possibly have?” Coulson asked, looking at his agents. Clint leaned in to wrap his arms around him, and a moment later Natasha copied the gesture for a moment, the three of them holding each other close.


End file.
